Longtime poverty writer and television producer, Becky Johnson of Santa Cruz, Ca. shares her essays, videos, and favorite articles on the issues of the day from the faux Swine Flu pandemics, to saving lives and billions with breast thermography. From smoking bans to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, try to keep up with Becky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BeckyJohnson222

Sunday, November 18, 2012

NOTE TO READER: I had the pleasure of hearing a talk by Melanie Phillips at UCSC a few years ago. She, like me, identifies with the left. She, like me, when examining the issues associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has come down firmly on the pro-Israel side. She, like me, has paid a huge price for holding that position. So it is with great pleasure that I offer my blog readers her analysis of the death toll in the Gaza 2012 War from a reasoned point of view. No photos of dead, bloody babies. Just facts, research, and a persuasive analysis. ---Becky Johnson, Ed.

Here is the (real) news

By Melanie Phillips

Here is some information about the war between Gaza and
Israel that for some unaccountable reason you may have missed today in Britain’s
mainstream media.

The casualty rate in Gaza from Israeli
strikes is astoundingly low

Since the beginning of Israel’s operation Pillar of
Defence last Wednesday against Hamas rocket attacks, there have been more than
1000 Israeli air strikes. At time of writing, the Palestinian
death toll is 69. That is a staggeringly small number of fatalities
for more than 1000 bombing raids.
It shows beyond doubt that the Israelis are not only
doing everything they can to avoid civilian casualties, but have achieved a
degree of precision in doing so which no other army can match. For sure, every
civilian casualty is regrettable, and the deaths of children are always tragic
-- today’s apparently heavy toll particularly so, including at what appears to
have been a mistaken target. Such mistakes inevitably happen in war.
But consider this: the very low casualty rate among
Israelis from the thousands of rockets that have rained down on them from Gaza is
largely due to the fact that Israel has provided its citizens with shelters to
save their lives. In Gaza, by horrific contrast, the Hamas leadership has deliberately
exposed its citizens to attack by siting its rocket arsenals among them in
order to maximise the number of civilian men, women and children who will be
killed.

A number of Gazan civilians may have been
killed by their own rockets

Israel says
that no fewer than 60 of the 703 rockets that Hamas fired at Israel between
last Wednesday and Saturday fell inside Gaza on Palestinian civilians. The
question therefore is how many of the 69 dead Palestinians were killed by
their own rockets?

Here’s one: Hamas lies that a child killed
by its own rocket was killed by Israel

Last Friday, a number of papers along with outlets such
as CNN in the US published prominent footage of the Egyptian Prime Minister
Hisham Kanil weeping over the body cradled in his arms of a dead child, Mahmoud
Sadallah, who Hamas claimed had been killed in an Israeli air strike. Blogger Elder
of Zyon smelled a rat and, piecing together convincing circumstantial
evidence, had concluded by this morning that the child was almost certainly not
killed by an Israeli strike – not least because on Friday morning when the
child died the Israelis had paused their bombing missions to allow for cease-fire
talks in Gaza to proceed -- but by a Hamas missile that was fired at Israel
but had fallen short in Gaza. Now experts from the Palestinian Centre for Human
Rights who visited the site on Saturday have said they believe that the
explosion that killed Mahmoud Sadallah was indeed caused by a Palestinian
rocket.
Just how prominent do you reckon the apologies on CNN
and in the British media for this sloppy and incompetent reporting/malicious
war libel of Israel will be?

Hamas admits to using human shields

In 2008 , Gaza MP Fathi Muhammad boasted
that Hamas used Gaza’s civilian population as human shields. He screamed:

‘For the Palestinian people, death has become an
industry at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.
The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is
why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly and
the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if
they were saying to the Zionist enemy, “We desire death like you desire life”.’

Remember this next time you hear or read of claims by Palestinians
or their useful western media idiots of ‘massacres’ of civilians in Gaza.

Hamas is now using journalists as human
shields

Hamas is preventing at least 22 foreign journalists from
leaving Gaza for Israel. According to Israel’s
Foreign Ministry, among those being detained are nine Italian citizens, one
Canadian, one South Korean, a French national and six journalists from Japan.
In addition, two Turkish Red Crescent members have been refused exit.

Hamas tells lies as a matter of routine

Hamas has claimed, inter
alia, that Israel’s Ben Gurion airport has been closed (false), that it had succeeded
in shooting down an Israeli F16 plane (false), that it had hit Tel Aviv and had
cut off electricity there (false). When will the western media stop assuming
that they can believe any claim that Hamas ever makes?

Hamas is now threatening human bomb
attacks

Hamas is now threatening to
use human bombs against both Israeli civilians in buses and cafes, and against
Israeli soldiers in any ground offensive in Gaza. This is what almost certainly
faces the Israel Defence Forces if they go in, because as Fathi Muhammad said
(above), the Palestinians are a death cult; they are committed to death and to killing,
while the Israelis are committed to life and to saving life.

Israel is feeding the hand that bites it

Unprecedentedly for a country at war, Israel continues to supply food, gas
and medical supplies to its enemies in Gaza for humanitarian reasons. Would any
other country in the world keep the supply route open to people who are firing
thousands of rockets to murder its people and are threatening to turn themselves
into human bombs to kill its soldiers and civilians, so that they can continue
to do so?

‘Despite all the foreign aid and support, Israel has
spectacularly failed to get on with its neighbours. Does Israel deserve a
future?’

So with Israel having faced existential attack from the
Arab and Muslim world for the six decades of its existence, and having been under
intensive rocket, missile and human bomb attack from them for more than a
decade, the BBC Any Questions production team selected as the audience question
to launch its discussion of the Gaza war whether Israel actually deserved to
exist at all.
Vile.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Linda Lemaster (left) attending one of many pre-trial hearings with supporters, Leslie and Kent, November 2, 2012 for a "lodging" ticket she got two years ago. Photo by Becky Johnson

by Becky Johnson

November 9, 2012

Santa Cruz, Ca. -- According to ADA Alex Byers, Linda Lemaster faces Six Months in Jail for the
"crime"of sleeping/not sleeping on public/private
property with /without possessions for a long/short period of
time which can be intentional/unintentional, all subject to the "permission" of the
"authority."

Linda is on trial for PC 647 ( e ) or illegal "lodging" under a little-used portion of the State code, which sheriff's had not used before citing protestors at Peace Camp 2010.

According to Byers, a protester with his/her
sign attempting to peaceably assemble to seek redress of government grievances may do so:

ONLY where the govt. tells them they can.

ONLY when the govt. tells them they can.

And, apparently, NOT while sitting, lying down, or sleeping
since these = lodging. And if a Sheriff tells you you can't "lodge" then whatever you are doing is "lodging." According to Byers, Sheriff's didn't need to prove a person was "lodging" in order to issue a citation. Only that they were "still there on the steps when sheriff's came back."

On the night of August 10th, as Linda Lemaster was cited for illegal lodging, Sheriff's moved elderly, Collette Connolly off the steps. Here she collapses in exhaustion on her belongings a scant 50 feet from the courthouse. Why Sheriff's told us the steps of the courthouse were illegal at 4:30AM but the parking lot was not was only one of the many arbitrary and confusing encounters Peace Camp 2010 had with law enforcement. Photo by Becky Johnson

Oh, THAT's a convenient definition of the code! When a sheriff hands you an unsigned piece of paper, then, according to Byers, that person "has been educated"that they no longer have the right to carry a sign, to protest, or to seek redress of government grievances. And if a protester wants to publicly assemble? They must follow "time, place, and manner restrictions" which are not written in the law anywhere.

Christopher Doyon a.k.a. "X" of Peace Camp 2010 pauses on the lower steps at Peace Camp 2010. In the background, Ed Frey's white, pick-up truck can be seen hitched to the camp porto-pottie. Other than Ed's privy, homeless people had no access to a bathroom at night other than at Peace Camp 2010. Photo by Becky Johnson July 30, 2010

For ADA Alex Byers, camping = lodging except that "camping" is not illegal in that particular location under County Code.

While camping is , according to Byers, essentially the same thing, "lodging" rates 6 months
in jail and/or a $1000 fine. And CAMPING is legal in the location where Linda was cited. Committing the same crime in the City (and Lemaster WAS in the City when she was cited) rates a $92 citation or 8 hours of community service as a possible consequence. So why did the sheriff's use the statewide "lodging" code rather than the County's camping code or the City's Sleeping and Blanket ban?

According to ADA, Alex Byers, it was due to "tolerance."

Those at Peace Camp 2010 know better. The plucky little group had discovered that the County's camping ban does not apply to the grounds around the courthouse and government center. In other words "camping" is legal there. Also, due to jurisdictional agreements, City police do not patrol the grounds at the Government Center. Sheriff's opted to not enforce City codes against Sleeping and using blankets. Codes that are all infractions, violations of which do not include jail. These were the twin laws the protest had assembled to challenge.

Peace Camp 2010 used public space which is unused at night. This photo taken on July 20th at 8:13PM shows people setting up bedding. At 8:00AM, Ed Frey would drive the porto-pottie off of the property and normal use of the facilities would commence. Photo by Becky Johnson

Around the end of July, County Counsel, Dana McCrae dusted off the lawbooks and dug up a code which used language lifted from an 1880 law in California designed to keep freed slaves from moving into the State. Judges Gallagher and in this trial, Connolly further eroded civil rights by creating a definition which lifts language from the 1851 Indiana State Constitution which states: "No Negro or Mulatto shall come into, or settle in, the State..."

The new definition of lodging which Judge Rebecca Connolly approved: "To occupy a place temporarily or permanently, or temporarily settle or to live in a place, it may, but does not have to include sleeping. It means more than just sleeping and less than moving into a place permanently."

Byers told jurors of the flyer sheriff's passed out willy-nilly to anyone who wanted one: The flyer only stated you are illegally lodging without permission. Merely telling Petitioner or anyone else that they are lodging or that they do not have the owner’s permission in no way clarifies what lodging means or how one can avoid it. In this circumstance “to lodge” illegally appears to have meant to the deputies- to further physically occupy space in any manner on the steps of the Santa Cruz County courthouse.

Sheriff's deputies stopped calling what we were doing as "camping" and started to accuse us of "lodging." We knew something was coming. About a week later, sheriff's handed out this flyer which had no letterhead, was unsigned, and unconvincing in its text as part of their "Education phase." --Photo by Becky Johnson Aug 7 2010

THE COUNTY'S PLAN

Byers told jurors about a 2-phased Plan to get the protesters to leave the location.

--Education phase followed by an Enforcement phase.

"Lt. Plageman testified that they weren't' interfering
with the right to protest.

Their goal was to stop people from the intent of the
protest which was to violate

the law." He told jurors that flyers were handed out in the following way: "If you were lying
down, you were sleeping, you were violating the law. At 4:30AM, they were already
lodging when the

Byers showed some really dark and grainy videos which
roughly show a mess. John Valley's voice can be heard and the sound of Linda coughing. Even worse, he paints the protest as characterized as "junk all over", none of which has ANYTHING to do with Linda Lemaster. Linda was wide awake at 11PM with no bedding. That, at 4:30AM, sheriff's came and found her sitting up and looking sleepy, doesn't mean a crime was committed.

Byers asserted more claims that I doubt are true.

"No one is allowed to lodge on the steps of the courthouse at night." Huh? Lodging isn't defined as an activity done at night only. And when Linda Lemaster was there at 4:30AM, she wasn't trespassing. The courthouse steps were a legal public place to be (at the time. Since this has been changed by County administration to make it a crime to BE THERE between 7PM and 7AM).

About Me

Longtime Santa Cruz homeless advocate, Becky Johnson has written for Street Spirit, produced "Bathrobespierre's Broadsides: Civil Rights for the Poor" and has lobbied for homeless civil rights with HUFF, Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom, and produced her own television show "Club Cruz" which covered local and poverty issues. Currently Ms. Johnson is one of the founders of Peace Camp 2010 located on the courthouse steps until the City of Santa Cruz repeals the Sleeping Ban.